fleshrippers gameplay: valheim ashlands

as with skoll and hati knife, the bottom line is this weapon is completely eclipsed in terms of function by the new lightning-enchanted dual axes. continuing to use it is simply a passion project, nothing more. so, in typical valheim fashing, the devs have invalidated all the fist skill you have been developing since the mountains, offering you no viable upgrade to continue that play-style. i dont think it would have been that hard to make some new claws out of bird feet, bone serpent teeth, or even a morgen trophy.
amidst the usual combat soup of ashlands gameplay, there are 3 important breakpoints evidenced in this video:
1. no, you cant parry-stagger a zero-star warrior, which deals up to 160 damage, depending on which attack it rolls. similarly, the valkyrie talon strike, morgen punch, and morgen dash bite also deal 160, which means you cant parry-stagger those either.
2. no, you cant opening kick-stagger a one-star warrior, @21:45.
3. yes, you can parry-stagger a zero-star morgen on the roll attack, @15:45. I will see if i can isolate a morgen and chain-stagger it by mixing in kicks and punches after parry-staggering a roll attack. this playthrough didnt cooperate in terms of spawns.
the above are relatively common and important breakpoints in ashlands. could my fist skill be a little higher? maybe a little, but remember at 75+ skill, the damage boost cuts in half. this is pretty close to optimal damage output, which is to say, there isnt much additional benefit from wearing the fenris set and squeezing another +15 fist skill. this set simply doesnt have enough armor, way too risky. yeah, it has fire resistance as a set bonus, but there is hardly any fire damage in ashlands apart from the fortress warlocks and the boss. the lava blobs and valkyrie projectiles deal very little damage.

[@sittingforgetting9907]

this video sponsored by hours of grinding fist skill against troll balls and greydwarf spawners.

[@blo5980]

Flesh ripper are powerful and fun. It's disappointed to see no successor of it.
Short two hit combo, kick duel 6x stagger, no speed penalty, lesser stamina consume. It's really a powerful weapon if you dig deeper into its machines...

[@fungjungkung]

Yeah, the fleshrippers was the mountain tier polearm. Polearms in the mountains suck because the terrain is so uneven, but the fleshrippers use less stamina, miss less on the mountains, and can stun enemies just as effectively as the iron polearm. My only guess as to why there wasn't a new equivalent is for the same reason that there is no ashlands polearm, it's already very effective in later biomes assuming you've trained your skill in them. Even on hard mode, the bronze polearm can carry you all the way through to the mistlands, but in the ashlands, enemies can't be stunned by dealt damage so polearms and the fleshrippers both suck there. I'm not even angry though, because with a trained polearm or unarmed skill, these weapons are still viable in ashlands, and other weapon classes such as axes, which shine in the ashlands, have been neglected way worse from the developers in earlier biomes

[@dozerbwt]

Concur with your assessment in the description. I'm really hoping for skill restructure and fleshing out of all weapons classes before full release. Fists weapons could be introduced in the swamp with root fists that deal poison & blunt dmg. They could have a black metal/Needle version that does blunt/pierce dmg in the plains. They could have a mandible Claw variant in the mistlands and a flametal/bone claw variant in the Ashlands. They could all spilt blunt damage with another type of damage to differentiate them from other weapon types (similar to knives). Their animation could use an upgrade too. Why is the kick an animation for a fist build weapon? Give me an uppercut or something cool!

[@sittingforgetting9907]

i would like to see chitin claws that can be worn while swimming, instead of forcing to holster like other weapons, so you can punch with them in water.

[@dozerbwt]

@@sittingforgetting9907 True that. We need more uses for chitin. I suspect that will get further developed when they work on the ocean biome after Deep North. Give us some serpent scale and/or chitin armor that provides a swim buff. Give us a reason to try to obtain the serpent scale armor other than a shield that became obsolete when they introduced the root harnesk.

[@hmgxiongchico]

Ive been watching a few of your game play in the ash…I must learn your ways … “bow to the weapon master”

[@user-gj3nh3jv7k]

We need flametal knuckes with upgrade to:
Iolite - Overture
Bloodstone - Punchline
Jade - Ragtime
Pull my Devil Trigger!

[@shutupshaun]

Still found it weird how few enemies you encountered in the ashlands. Glad to see others trying out weapons and working on combat mastery.

[@forsure1234]

The Skills system need a rework or even a complete removal. Uninteresting bonuses (durr +damage -stamina usage across the board), design too lazy to even account for the attack rate of various weapons (bows vs crossbow, etc), barrier to entry for experimenting with new wpns, makes game harder for new players and easier for experienced ones. I find no good qualities about it.

[@sittingforgetting9907]

current skill system leaves a lot to be desired. devs skip certain weapon bases for some biomes, seemingly in an effort to make you "experiment" but the inertia of skill bonuses dont really favor that. i'd rather see the skills consolidated into broader categories, like melee, ranged, magic, etc.

[@avenger7800]

Did you never pick up a bow with this character?

[@sittingforgetting9907]

never

[@avenger7800]

@@sittingforgetting9907 thats impresive af man how did you manage to kill gjalls?

[@sittingforgetting9907]

@@avenger7800 search "gjall" on my channel, lots of examples. spear is extremely effective.

[@gmeroxx]

How u went through all game without using bow at all (0lv)

[@sittingforgetting9907]

game is more fun without bow